FRANCE Law and Practice Contributed by: Véronique Millischer, Léna Sersiron, Eléonore d’Anthonay, Guillaume Nataf, Olivia Chriqui-Guiot, Pauline Celeyron, Damien Berruyer and Nella Picou, Baker McKenzie Paris
Employees are entitled to a minimum of five weeks of paid annual leave per year, in addition to public holidays where applicable. Several alternative working time arrangements exist, particularly for managerial employees. For example, certain autonomous executives may work under a working time scheme set in a “days over the year” arrangement, under which working time is measured in days worked per year rather than hours, provided that specific legal conditions are met. 4.4 Termination of Employment Contracts France is not an employment-at-will jurisdiction. An employer may terminate an employment contract only on legally recognised grounds and must comply with strict statutory procedures. Individual dismissals must be based on a real and serious cause ( cause réelle et sérieuse ), which may be: • personal, such as misconduct, repeated poor per - formance or incapacity; or • economic, where justified by economic difficulties, technological changes, business reorganisation necessary to safeguard competitiveness, or cessa - tion of business activity. The dismissal procedure generally includes a writ - ten invitation to a pre-dismissal meeting, the meeting itself, and a formal dismissal letter stating the grounds for the dismissal. Failure to comply with either the substantive or procedural requirements may result in damages. Employees dismissed for reasons other than serious or gross misconduct are generally entitled to: • statutory or contractual notice (or payment in lieu thereof); • statutory dismissal indemnity (depending on the applicable CBA and length of service); and • payment of accrued but unused paid leave. Where a dismissal is found to lack real and serious cause, compensation is awarded within the bounds of the statutory scale, which sets minimum and maxi -
mum amounts by seniority. Weak grounds or proce - dural missteps can therefore expose the employer to damages and, in limited cases (eg, null dismissals), to reinstatement. Employment contracts may also be terminated by resignation, by retirement and by mutual agreement through a mutual termination agreement, which must be approved by the labour administration. Collective redundancies are subject to additional requirements. Depending on the number of proposed redundancies and the size of the company, employ - ers must consult the Social and Economic Committee ( comité social et économique , or CSE) and, in larger- scale redundancy schemes (dismissing at least ten employees over a 30-day period in a company with 50 or more employees), prepare either a social plan ( plan de sauvegarde de l ’ emploi ) negotiated with employ - ee representatives or established unilaterally and approved or validated by the labour administration. Employers must also comply with obligations relat - ing to redeployment, selection criteria, priority for re- employment, and information and consultation proce - dures. Failure to comply may result in the redundancy process being invalidated or give rise to significant financial liability. As a negotiated alternative to compulsory redun - dancies, employers may also conclude a collective mutual-termination agreement ( rupture convention- nelle collective ), based on voluntary departures and subject to validation by the regional labour administra - tion ( Direction régionale de l ’ économie , de l ’ emploi , du travail et des solidarités , or DREETS). 4.5 Employee Representations Under French law, employee representation is manda - tory once certain workforce thresholds are met. The principal employee representative body is the CSE, which must be established in any company employing at least 11 employees for 12 consecutive months. The CSE’s powers vary depending on the size of the company:
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